Buff pets for PvE

Ever since the menagerie was released to the public, I've wanted to use it. Problem? Pets are useless, useless, useless, and USELESS!

So I propose a buff for pets.
I know they won't remove brutal mauling and that has been made clear. Though there are other aspects of pets that desperately needs attention in PvE.
But I'll be specific on what TRULY need a buff/rework with pets:

Charm Animal - Honestly. If you didn't need it to bring your pet, who would give a damn? You have to devote two whole skill slots (This and Comfort Animal) just to have basic use of a pet. And that's WITHOUT all the pet buffs and skills.
At least make this skill rez our pets so we're not forced to bring comfort animal.

Charm animal could definitely use that buff, I don't know if RaO would be overpowered with it or not, but i could see both pve/pvp changed

RaO needs a buff.

longer duration or MUCH less energy...atleast a PvP-only version!

There already is a pvp version, it's called rao, the pve version is called never rampage alone

This has already been brought up. The pet system is fine as it is.

Right, that is why you see so many beastmasters. Pets need a buff, and the title of this thread should be Buff pets, minus the PvE thing, since BOTH sides need it. Playing PvE favorites is never fun.

Bandaid answer.

Explain to me why pets are never used outside of IWAY or gimmicks?

There are good builds u can run with pets,i cant say they are the most effective,but they defently have their uses.
And yes,i'd love to see charm animal revive the pet,that one skill slot would be very welcome for me
BUT,other than that,i think the system is ok.

/agree with the Charm Animal buff

No it's not. It's utter crap.

The first fix that would make beastmasters viable is an upgrade to pet AI. They're too slow to react, even when their pathetic micros are micro'd, and they're too slow to get to target. The pets are *animals*, they should get a movement buff so that it's viable to bring them as a form of physical damage/frontline damage absorption. Honestly, with all of the buffs available for pets, a 25-50% IMS and better reactivity to pinging targets/auto attacking would make them a good option without buffing skills themselves. In my opinion, when in battle, a pet should land its first attack on a target *the instant the Ranger's first arrow lands on that target*.

Second, yes, the skills themselves. Too many of the better buffs are just the recast-on-recharge flavor with insane durations and recharges. Make running a pet more viable, but more difficult to get good results out of. The pet skills' effects would be decent if the pet would obey (lawl) properly and if they were better suited for dealing damage.

Third, bar compression, and this applies to Rangers in general. Combine/buff Ranger/pet skills so that a successful beastmaster build can include a preparation and some bow/spear/scythe/whatever attacks to deal first-hand damage. Sure, it should be balanced so that it's not as effective at beast mastery as 5-6 beast mastery skills or as effective at sniping as 4 attack skills and 2-3 buffs, but allowing Rangers to run profitable hybrid bars would really spark some interest in the class in general as well as giving new playability in areas the Ranger has needed but hasn't had since release.

This is why ANet implemented a PvE/PvP split.

Came back to edit my post before anyone saw it, totally didn't read the title lol.

Edit: In my defense, they did start talking about IWAY.

Ranger pets really need's buff.

If you think about it, MM minions could be considered "pets" and you can create minions with 1 skill slot and can configure their level with the attributes, not need to level them up :-/

Other nice "pets" for PvE at least are Asuran summoning skills and Assassin Support, and they take only 1 skill slot.

Combine Assassin Promise with Assassin Support and you could have multiple assassins.

My main issue with pets is that they're very much akin to adding a Koss or Jora to the party, without careful control they'll just over aggro every mob around the target. The 'heel' command isn't enough, there really needs to be a flagging system.

Besides that, I agree with the above points that they move far too slowly, if the skill designers saw fit to include a pet rupt skill, they should at least have the capacity to shadow step to the target so that they connect immediately instead of 2 seconds after the skill was used.

Pets work well enough. I have a hard mode pet build that I often use in explorables, not dungeons. What needs changing is the two skill slots for the pet. We have been asking for that since the game was released.

make never rampage alone have a res in it. I still think it needs a lower energy cost but the pet res is important part.

As of right now, Beast Mastery is absolute shit and I wouldn't mind seeing it replaced in GW2. Or, they could fix it... either is fine. >.>
Agreed. They do already have faster movement, though. Like 25% or something. Anyways...
-Decrease the amount of time that a pet takes to switch targets and make them react to pings
-Ya know how pets freeze for like two seconds when they reach their target? Get rid of that.
-Pet attacks should function like other attacks. When I click a bow attack, I automatically run to my target and use it. When I click a pet attack skill, my pet should drop whatever it's doing and do the fricken attack on whatever I'm targeting.

Agreed again. Pet buffs are basically one-sided skills that you have up constantly. Makes for a dull build, IMO. Another thing I'd like to see is skills that buff both the pet and the master.

Agreed x 3. Bar compression is one of the biggest reasons why pets are only used with thumpers and packers. Hammers and spears can do nice damage using few skills and they use adrenaline for e-management. With a bow, you're almost forced to use Scavenger Strike or Ferocious Strike (if you like wasting your elite) to manage energy and you do crappy damage.

Also, buff Charm Animal.

Charm Animal
10e 10c 10r
Charm target animal. Once charmed, your animal companion will travel with you whenever you have Charm Animal equipped. You cannot charm an animal that is more than 4 levels above you. If your animal companion is dead, this skill activates in two seconds and your pet is returned to life with 5...29...35% health.

Something like that would be nice. Not sure if the activation time change is possible, though, as there are no skills like that now. :/

Aye, the thought crossed my mind that pets probably do in fact move fast enough - it's the AI that's the problem.

Having the pet reach a target before an arrow arrives is probably a little silly - especially if the Ranger is using a recurve with Read the Wind! With decent AI, the pet really should have other advantages that make up for having a slower response time than an arrow.

Heck, you don't even need the activation time change. Better without it, in fact - that means you still have an incentive to bring pet resurrection skills to do it faster, but you can choose to just bring Charm Animal on its own without it being a wasted slot after one death of your pet.

Charm and Comfort are required because of balance. And yes, I know PvE throws balance out the window a lot, but I'd not like to see it done more than it already has. Having a pet means you do more damage. So hitting a target with your bow and pet will do close to double damage (depending on attributes). Now toss in skills to do more damage and the numbers can get quite large. If Charm Animal was merged with Comfort Animal, I'd like to see the pet become your weapon so that you can't wield a bow, hammer, spear, axe, sword, daggers, wand, staff, etc. if using a pet.

No, pets aren't used often, but that doesn't mean they aren't useful. Making them useful on a build that isn't designed around the pet would NOT be good for the game.

thats a summon....not a pet

bm's in hb use heal as one, and thus will likely be unaffected if charm animal doubled as a pet res...also, charm animal is a 10s cast time lolz if it went unchanged...

IMO only reason a pet/beast mastery is on RaO bar is to activate it, therefore, pets suck.

There doesn't seem to be any good reason to run a beastmaster build over a full marks build, so /signed. It's disappointing to see an entire skill branch (and game function, basically) be neglected.

Totally right , if BM skills were party wide at least we could see 2+ Bmasters coordinate and do decent damage + self defense . The att point split part is still there but hey , thats somethin .

Minions die of degen, so you need Blood of the Master or Heal Area or whatever. Meaning you need 2 slots again, unless you rrun some gimmick-diablo2-corpse-explosion-kind-of-thing.

They last a few seconds.


Rangers in general are fine. You got RaO and also I've seen 1 high end guild running 2 beast mastery rangers with a very high damage output and pressure too.

There's more important classes that need buffs like the Dervish and War's Tactics IMO.

The sins only need to last a few seconds, you get out one-two per enemy that deal 200 damage plus and divert attention from the enemy, and they're instantly in frontline making enemies use PBAoE, and unless you have strike as one and getting a 10 recharge on skills, pets can't do that

And what guild was this? HA? GvG?

Ye, I won't disagree with you about the sins. They spike down, they are not meant to tank like minions or even pets. Thing is pets and minions are generally better in PvE IMO. In PvP, well, minion factory is long dead( ). Pets are still used but I will agree mostly in gimmick builds.

About the guild I mentioned, I honestly don't remember the name but it was among the first 100. That was in GvG as you can imagine, and the rangers were R/P with these skills from what I remember:

Barbed Spear
Apply poison
Call of Protection
Otyugh's Cry
Symbiotic Bond
Enraged Lunge
Charm Animal(apparently)
Res sig

I think that was their build, only 1 of the 2 might have had Revive Animal.

That's all I remember tbh. The did pressure well with degen and damage apparently(spamming Enraged Lunge which was unblockable), they could spike(well almost, cause spiking with pets ain't that easy) and it was close to impossible to kill their pets from the + armor and damage reduction .

EDIT: They won too

Really ? i guess you talk about NM because HM is not fun when your pet can be 3 hitted to death by a lvl 28 or something else you dont see coming because all pets are melee ( lol @ that , they should have made some ranged ) and suddenly something explodes and bam 3-6 secs of skill blackout.

The thing is that BM should work in a way that you deal less damage with your weapon ( pretty obvious , att points split ) and your pet should do decent damage with little skills. Hell , they should have a mini skill bar ( with 2-4 skills ) and THAT would be fun .

PD: Dont bring that "uh that would be overpowered" up because we are talking about PvE only

Even if in PvP the do roughly fine, in PvE they are barely a curiosity.

The only reason to bring them is for fun, and bringing a pet can be frustrating sometimes, removing such fun.

I run a ranger character that has always been a full-bore beastmaster, and I love it. Pets are surprisingly robust even in HM with a buff or two (Otyugh's Cry, Call of Protection), and I don't experience three-hit kills very often.

But some PvE pet buffs are definitely in order. I don't want to see pets turned into some kind of autonomous death machines, as I hear they are in WoW. And I don't want them to basically be an additional hero on the team. But a pet should be an effective weapon when a ranger chooses to use it instead of a bow. Things to be fixed:

1. The delays before attack (2 sec to start moving, time to run to the foe, another 2 sec staring at the foe before attacking -- by which time the foe is probably elsewhere ...) are horrible, and half the time the team has the targeted foe down before my pet gets anywhere near. Gah.

2. The delays after the foe goes down. A hero or henchie or minion or summon will stay in the battle and pick another foe, even if you don't call another target. A pet will always start running back to you. Now the pet has to realize you're attacking another foe (stop running, stare at you for 2 sec), turn around, run back to the battle, stare at the new foe for 2 sec, etc. By which time the team has the new foe down. Gah.

3. The autoattack damage of a pet is absolutely pathetic. I can see why you would not want high autoattack damage in a hybrid build where it would combine with weapon damage to turn rangers into super death dealers. But something must be done for serious beastmaster builds where the pet IS your weapon. I carry a +20e staff and spam pet attacks like crazy because that is the only way I can get respectable amounts of damage out of a pet. I'm not saying that a pet should be able to do warrior levels of autoattack damage, but I am not seeing anything near the numbers listed on the wiki for pet damage even running at 16 Beast Mastery. Maybe add some armor penetration scaled with Beast Mastery? Something.

4. It would be nice if the ranger could also do the same things with a pet as with a bow, including reliable interrupts and AoE attacks. Any dervish can hit more than one foe at once on autoattack. Why shouldn't pets at least have an effective attack skill or call for doing the same? Perhaps one could even make certain preparations work with a pet. (Choking Gas? Any skunk can do it! )

Given fixes in those areas, I wouldn't even care about bar compression by changing Charm Animal.

People need to learn the difference between underpowered and underused.

Beast mastery is MENACINGLY overpowered, but people are too dumb to come up with builds for it. In fact, my BM ranger uses BM heroes, and its damage is ridiculous. You ever seen a destroyer go down in less than 2 seconds?

My point is: get smarter, and don't complain.

I do agree with the pausing. I don't see why they can't just function like heroes. Their AI is terrible. At least we have some form of control now, it was pretty annoying before we got that pet panel.

Pets in GW are astronomically stronger than pets in WoW though, the only difference is you surrender your bow skills here and not in wow.

Pets do not need buffs of any kind. They don't need armor, they don't need damage. They need a player behind the screen who knows how to make builds. My beastmaster is packing 110+ damage per second (tested against the master at balthazar temple)

QFT. Thread win. I really suck on making builds and even I was able to cope in HM with a pet on a... warrior.

Lol people talking about Beastmasters here...GW has no Beastmasters...what GW has are Dompteurs without whips...so I would call Rangers that use pets...

because a real Beastmaster handles more than 1 single pet at the same time !! at least 3 different pets.

Ever seen anyone of you any kind of beastmaster series on TV??? I doubt so...
In every series, be it real like or cartoon, the Beastmaster controls 3 or more Animals at the same time. (lion, falcon, 2 mermelins are mostly standard)
-------

Pet system is compared to the undeads and Spirits of the other Classes shit...
I don't understand, what is so hard about the pet system to fix, that so more Pets the rangers uses, so lesser will be the max level of pets as balancing method...

1-2 Pets: Max Level 20
3-4 Pets: Max Level 17
5-6 Pets: Max Level 15

Also, so more pets u take with you, so lesser should be the strength and the defense of each single pet.

1-2 pets: 100% Strength + Defense
3-4 pets: 80% Strength + Defense from original maximum
5-6 pets: 60% Strength + Defense from original maximum

this and better Beastmastery-Skills, each Pet controlable like a Hero with its own Skill bars.... the beastmastery-skills, which are on the player itself should be merely only Healing & Support-Skills for the pets...no attack skills ...the attack skills belong all to the Pet-Skillbars then.

Also no Skills should be required to have the Pets within you..the Pet should be a basic feature, which should be ever at the side of the Ranger, regardless of the Skill Build!!! The Build should only determine, how much of the maximum 6 Pets should be the player allowed to take with...

that now just as example for fixing the problems for GW1, but regardless, I hope GW2 will receive a much better thought out Pet-System, which isnt so lame, like the old one then. Pet should be only not automatically ever at the side of the player, if the player personally wants it so by deactivating the Pet at the Characters Equipment-Menu, where Ranger-characters should have the Extra-Option like deactivating the Cape or the Head Gear to deactivate the Pet... btw this option will naturaly appear, if a non Main Ranger-Character has Ranger as secondary class...


Everythign's just a matter of Gameplay-Design and atm die Pet-System is one of GW's bad designs, which could have been made alot better...and more funnier to play

Phoenix Tears....did you just suggest that a ranger can have 5-6 level 15 pets?

really?

I think he wants rangers to be more like minon masters. :\

/Signed

for a change of Charm Animal, aslong as the health it resses with is very low, so it doesn't unbalance PvP to much, then freeing up one slot will allready make a load of difference to being able to make a decent BM build.

For some reason i remember this same discussion from another thread not to long ago

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3041676

Now that would be seriously cool, especially if they added giant ferrets to the game. Go, my furry army, go! (Actually, I just want a giant ferret. Just one would be fine, instead of an army. Is that too much to ask? )

Ping or I don't believe you. Only way I can see have that much damage output is enraged lunge combined with shouts for your pets such as feral aggression. Even then, enraged lunge has a recharge of 5 and that downtime hurts a lot since your bar would consist of mainly only buffs with only 1 or 2 attack skills.

Yeah , cheap words over there. He came up strong with those "People need to learn the difference between underpowered and underused." and "My point is: get smarter, and don't complain. " . Lets see if he has some screens to back that up ( yes , wanna see lvl 30 destroyers die in 2 secs and builds to do it ).